Contact Details

Biography

I used to work as a medical academic, specialising in experimental and clinical neuroscience*, but found that I also enjoyed translating into English, at first from Swedish and later also from Norwegian, Danish and German.
Once retired, translation became my (nearly) full-time occupation: to date, I have completed 21 books – a mixture of literary fiction and non-fiction – published in the UK, the USA and Australia and in Norway (2 historical works).
Between 2010 and 2015 , I was responsible for Bookshelf, the review section of Swedish Book Review, i.e. I commissioned and edited reviews in English of new Swedish books.
Below (Publications): two forthcoming translations and three already published volumes.
Most of my non-medical writing has taken the form of articles on literary topics, but I have also published a book about landscape, identity and environmental awareness in Scotland; I am married to a Scot and live in the Scottish countryside.
*Dr Anna Paterson has degrees in medicine and medical sciences from Lund (Sweden) and London.

Selected Publications

Sem-Sandberg, Steve. The Chosen Ones .

Faber & Faber, 2016. ISBN n/a.

A passionately serious and meticulously researched case study of racial oppression and injustice, lightened by Sem-Sandberg’s sharp sense of the absurd, The Chosen Ones is also an absorbing and beautifully written novel. It is set in Vienna during a few decades around the middle of 20th century when the city went from being a post-imperial oddity to a satellite of Berlin under Nazi control, followed by a slow recovery to central European normality.

Elfgren & Strandberg , Sara & Mats . The Key.

Hammer Books, 2015. ISBN 978 009956 85.

The third and last volume of The Circle, a very successful series of novels for young adults about a group of unusual teenagers: they are witches – most of them ‘white’. They are sensitively and intelligently described, ordinary characters leading ordinary lives, even as they use their supernatural talents to fight invading demons in extraordinary adventures.
I also translated the second volume of The Circle, Fire (Eld)

Josefsson , Dan . The Strange Case of Thomas Quick .

Granta/ Portobello Books, 2015. ISBN 978 184627 57.

Investigative reportage of a very high order, focusing on the legal and psycho-social issues raised by the miscarriages of justice that, over several years, lead Swedish courts to convict an innocent man on eight counts of murder.

Ljubić , Nicol . Stillness of the Sea .

Vagabond Voices, 2011. ISBN 978 190825 10.

Set in The Hague and, in particular, in the International Criminal Court and its tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, this fine book follows a young historian who loves the daughter of a Serb defendant, accused of deliberately incinerating a Muslim family. As he listens to the cross-examination of the witnesses, he grows increasingly uncertain about the guilt of would-be killer in the dock.

Image Credit: The backdrop to our website is a beautiful photo of the Öresund Bridge by Silvia Man/imagebank.sweden.se. Öresundsbron is a 15.9 km long connection between Sweden and Denmark. It is both a bridge and a tunnel, and carries both motor and rail traffic. It was opened in 2000 and is well known in the UK to viewers of the popular TV drama series The Bridge shown on BBC4.